h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Evolution found a way to reduce the number of competitors by preventing them from being born in the first place. You give your kids an advantage by attacking others, especially females, that you see in a sexual display. If you can't boff them yourself, stop them from boffing anyone.
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Can you give some examples? I can't think of any offhand.

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There's a gene that makes us want to have sex for ourselves and a gene that makes us want to stop others from having sex.
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Isn't it more likely to be many genes that influence that kind of behaviour?

kea,

I can think of two offhand. In a wolf pack, the alpha female monopolizes reproduction. She does this by so stressing the other females that they don't ovulate. In meerkats the leader of the troop will attack and drive off members of her own troop if they become pregnant.

I just thought of a third example. Robert Sapolski (in A Primates Memoir, I think) says that while the dominant male baboon will mount a female openly, other males also get some by doing it secretly. Is that evolved modesty or are baboons smart enough to anticipate what the big guy would do if he saw them?

Sapolski also tells the funny story of the baboon voyeur. We're not the only ones fascinated by others having sex.

Effers, you're right, my original assertion was way too simplistic. I was trying to answer Stanley's challenge to show an evolutionary explanation for modesty. My answer was too short, a better one would fill volumes.

Of course. There are two slightly different senses of the word 'gene' One is a string of DNA that makes a protein. I was using the older sense of 'a specific something that does a specific something'. That would include combinations of discrete bits of code.

I'm off to the north woods for a few days. Looking forward to seeing where this thread is going when I get back.

>> ...Looking forward to seeing where this thread is going...<<



It seems Tumsup likes to watch.
So no antisex gene hang-ups there.


~jwf~

>> ...apologies jwf for my last unnecessarily vehemently expressed post; blame it on my rubbish genes ...<<

I was more thinking of blaming your XX chromosomes.
But I'm no so don't ask me Y.

~jwf~

But back to Marxism...

kea, Post 351:

>>I don't see how economics can be used to define all the ways in which a people can be self determining

I guess what I'm really making a plea for is Materialism...the idea that all our behaviours and thoughts are reduceable to decisions on what is most conducive to our survival/happiness. This is the same whether we are males living in 21stC Western Urban Civilisation...or peoples living in whatever form of non-western. non-male-dominated, non-urban context. We are all the same species, with the same biology...and thus the same responses to our varying conditions.

Do <quote> Native Peoples really think differently to...well...me? Or you? Possibly. But surely they're just you or me in different circumstances? Their thoughts are shaped by their material circumstances, as are mine. To translate between the two, we need to understand the material aspects, rather than stress about our radically different thought patterns. And after all...If I can't understand them...neither can you.

I accept that not everyone realises that different peoples' circumstances are different...but I suspect that you're erecting a straw man if you think that my sort of reductionist analysis precludes the idea that different peoples see things differently.

>>In a wolf pack, the alpha female monopolizes reproduction. She does this by so stressing the other females that they don't ovulate. <<

That's interesting Tumsup, I was thinking of wolf packs last night as an example of animals who have female centred social practices similar to matrilineal human cultures

See, how I've read it, the alpha female is supported by the oher females (the aunts), to bear and rear the pups. The aunts help with the rearing. This setup ensures a higher survival rate because the pups in question are better looked after, and the resources of the pack aren't spread over such a wide number of pups.

So I will be interested to hear how the alpha female stresses the other females to prevent them from ovulating.

Ed, I'm not sure what's happened with the quoting there, and who said what.

>>I guess what I'm really making a plea for is Materialism...the idea that all our behaviours and thoughts are reduceable to decisions on what is most conducive to our survival/happiness. This is the same whether we are males living in 21stC Western Urban Civilisation...or peoples living in whatever form of non-western. non-male-dominated, non-urban context. We are all the same species, with the same biology...and thus the same responses to our varying conditions.
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What you seem to be saying there is that biology is paramount. How important do you think culture is? I think it's at least as important as biology, but for the sake of argument can we work with the idea that they're roughly equally important?

I disagree that we can't understand how other peoples think differently. I've done it, with some native concepts and with some Asian concepts. And I know many others that have too. Like I said earlier, there is a degree of unlearning of Western thinking that is required.

And of course, native peoples who live in colonised countries inherently already speak two conceptual languages, their own and the one of the dominant culture.


>>but I suspect that you're erecting a straw man if you think that my sort of reductionist analysis precludes the idea that different peoples see things differently.<<

It's not that I think you can't recognise that people have different world views, it's more that I'm not sure that we're talking about the same thing. When I said earlier about contradictory realities, I'm pretty sure that you and possibly Effers took that to mean something quite different than what I was meaning.

Also, you may accept that there are different world views, but the Western way of thinking most likely prevents people from understanding what that means. I don't know how true that is for you personally.

I really feel it would be much better were I to give examples, Let me have a think about that.

btw was Marx an atheist?

>>What you seem to be saying there is that biology is paramount. How important do you think culture is? I think it's at least as important as biology, but for the sake of argument can we work with the idea that they're roughly equally important?

Actually...I think what I'm saying is that culture *is* biology...and I don't think I'll get any argument from you about that. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's most useful to talk about culture at the genetic or biochemical level...you'll not get any argument from me that higher-level language can be more appropriate.

>>I disagree that we can't understand how other peoples think differently. I've done it, with some native concepts and with some Asian concepts. And I know many others that have too. Like I said earlier, there is a degree of unlearning of Western thinking that is required.

Actually...I don't think we're disagreeing. The fact that we can understand one another - albeit by translating from one cultural paradigm to another - is simply an (obvious) expression of our common humanity. Everything is reduceable to human terms. If we dig deap eenough, there's no Western vs Eastern dichotomy.

>>Also, you may accept that there are different world views, but the Western way of thinking most likely prevents people from understanding what that means. I don't know how true that is for you personally.

But you're setting up another staw man here...that I (or you) might be better able to understand alternate modes of thought than the majority of people. That's possibly true. But it's no more interesting a fact than that some are better than others at stepping inside others' shoes.

>>btw was Marx an atheist?

Do you really need to ask that?

Incidentally...plesase don't mistake my Marxism for dogmatic communism. The Marxism I adhere to is the idea that our culture (= thoughts, behaviour, relationships...whatever) is shaped by our material relationships. (On the one hand, that's a gross over-simplification. On the other...that's probably the best definition of Marxism I've managed so far)

The Tumsup vs kea view of wolves:

So are we saying that the difference of opinion would be settled by the biological mechanism by which the aunts' ovulation is suppressed?

In the Tumsup hypothesis, we might expect the Alpha-female to nip at her sisters, resulting in the production of cortisol and the subsequent supression of ovulation.

In the kea hypothesis, we might expect the altrusitic, sympathetic suppression of ovulation by...other means. Like the sisters sensing the Alpha's pheremones?

Hmm. How does an Alpha female get to become an Alpha? Is there fighting involved?

Not that any of this matters, of course - unless we make the mistake of being biological determinists. Except...we should be honest and say that the truth of explanations which are consistent with male-centred thinking in no way alters the wisdom of Feminist politics. It's not necessary to believe that wolves are sisterly, egalatarian creatures to believe that humans should be.

I think the issue there is to what extent science has been taken in a certain direction because it is value laden and has not been acknolwdged as such. So when a different way of understanding comes along all of a sudden it's feminist thought vs science (or history or anthroplogy etc), whereas really the question should be has unacknolwedged male-centric bias misled our scientific understanding?

Please see the eariler quote about value free disciplines and amend it to be about science

So you may think that it doesn't matter. As a female I have to say it matters in the extreme. Do you think our understandings of evolution would be the same if Darwin had a been a woman in a culture that understood the value of women? Can you imagine what our understandings of the world might be like had he been?

How many people believe that survival of the fittest means survival of the biggest, strongest and meanest? Is there a connection between that belief and the fact that we live in a culture based on domination?


Thanks for bringing up Marx etc again. I think that conversation is helping to clarify what we are talking about a lot Will get back to those points later.

I don't quite understand your point kea. Science is a neutral discipline. The only reason Darwin is still remembered is that he is someone who had a certain insight...put forward a theory...that has resulted in millions of experiments being performed according to the scientific method, worldwide, by men and women in many cultures all over the world, which have accumulated evidence to support that theory.

If people think survival of the fittest means the strongest it shows that don't even have a minimal of basic biological understanding of the theory in its scientific sense. A dove strategy can be far more effective than the hawk, in nature. Fittest has nothing to do with strongest...that's soap opera thinking.

Science may well be a neutral discipline, but the public perception of science is not (and cannot be) fully neutral.

TRiG.

>>How many people believe that survival of the fittest means survival of the biggest, strongest and meanest? Is there a connection between that belief and the fact that we live in a culture based on domination?

No. Not really. Yes...some people do misuse evolution to support the idea of hierarchy, but it's not the Theory of Evolution - Darwin's male interpretaion or otherwise - that pushes them in that direction. They'd be mean buggers anyway.

It is, however, an inconveniently observable fact that nature is red in tooth and claw. Lionesses may well be nurturing, matriarchal pussycats - but they also go for the jugular. It seems to unhelpful - and unnecessary - to recast evolution as something caring, sharing and touchy-feely.

It may well be that domination and patriarcy *are* in our nature - as indeed are nurturing and cooperation. This should not present a problem for the Feminsist agenda. The issue is not to deny our fundamentally brutish nature, but to overcome it.

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no we should keep it in check and only use it when we need to

>>Science is a neutral discipline<<

Supposedly, and maybe even in theory is should be (not entirely sure about that). But in practice it certainly isn't, and I'm not talking only about public perception. The idea that scientists are all completely value free, or can keep their conscious and unconscious biases from affecting their work is simply an idea. It doesn't actually work that way. Medical science is an obvious example, it's well known even within the profession that much research is being co-opted by business interests.

Personally, I don't have a problem with science not being value free, I just think we should be honest about it and the biases involved.


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Yes...some people do misuse evolution to support the idea of hierarchy, but it's not the Theory of Evolution - Darwin's male interpretaion or otherwise - that pushes them in that direction. They'd be mean buggers anyway.
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Yes, and if you read my post I didn't say that Darwin said survival of the fittest is about strength and domination, I said that is a common understanding of the term. And that that understanding comes from the fact that we view nature as being about competition and domination. And that is a cultural view.


The core ideas in Darwin's theory have been established as truth. No problem with that. How society takes those ideas and interprets them and uses them is a different matter, and that's where I contend that Darwin's ideas are influenced by who he was and the context he lived in.

When Darwin's contemporaries came to NZ and took over, they came with a set of cultural values. So you had two peoples here with quite different world views. Europeans looked at the great river systems and saw that nothing was being done with them and proceeded to chop them down and grow sheep and crops. What they failed to see was that Maori were already farming those river systems (and had been for centuries in a sustainable way), they just did it in a way that worked with nature not against. And no I'm not saying Maori were angels who never did anything wrong. But I am saying that it's the different world views involved that gave the different response to the worlds they found themselves in.



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It is, however, an inconveniently observable fact that nature is red in tooth and claw. Lionesses may well be nurturing, matriarchal pussycats - but they also go for the jugular. It seems to unhelpful - and unnecessary - to recast evolution as something caring, sharing and touchy-feely.
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OFFS, Ed. *Where* have I *ever* said that nature is touchy-feely? I've asked nicely already to stop attributing such ideas to my arguments. I'm getting to the point where I might have to get all aggressive and tooth and claw about it

Really, I do wish you would stop positing the argument as being a conflict between the idea that one thing is nice and the other is nasty.


>>
It may well be that domination and patriarcy *are* in our nature - as indeed are nurturing and cooperation. This should not present a problem for the Feminsist agenda. The issue is not to deny our fundamentally brutish nature, but to overcome it.
<<

You seem to be saying that without patriarchy/domination brutality would be absent. I disagree. Egalitarian society can co-exist with people killing each other for instance. Patriarchy isn't a synonym for brutishness, it's a way of organising society based around some people being able to control others.

Where I was going with the wolf example... I think it does matter how the worldview affects things.

We know for instance that for a long time most medical research on heart disease was done on men, because men were considered the norm. So now we have a situation where women are prescribed medications based on male physiology even when that may not be appropriate. I don't believe that that would have happened in a research environment that took account of women's reality.

There's also been alot of pretty dodgy medicine done on women's reproductive systems. In NZ there's an infamous case of a consultant who let women with cervical dysplasia progress to cervical cancer, because he believed that that wouldn't happen and so did a de facto research project on it without anyone's consent. Some of those women died, others ended up having hysterectomies and other surgery that would otherwise have been unnecessary. The doctor's peers were unwilling or unable to stop him (this went on for several decades). In the end it was a couple of journalists (yes, feminist ones with, you know, an eye towards women's reality) who investigated and put a stop to it, got a ministerial enquiry that led to the setting up of a cervical screening programme. Oh yeah and the judge was a woman

That was an extreme example but it's not particularly unusual unfortunately.

Now, any individual man or woman in that situation could have acted in any way there. But the *culture* of the situation was what determined alot of what happened. Mostly it was to do with the way doctors are considered beyond reproach . But I also think it's to do with the fact that women's culture would never be so casual about things like cervices and wombs. Male doctors have tended to have male values around women's reproduction - a common rationale for post menopausal hysterectomy has been that if you can't have babies you don't need a womb any more. Women, understandably, might see that differently.

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Actually...I think what I'm saying is that culture *is* biology...and I don't think I'll get any argument from you about that.
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You might Ed, if I understood. What do you mean that culture is biology?


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>>I disagree that we can't understand how other peoples think differently. I've done it, with some native concepts and with some Asian concepts. And I know many others that have too. Like I said earlier, there is a degree of unlearning of Western thinking that is required.

Actually...I don't think we're disagreeing. The fact that we can understand one another - albeit by translating from one cultural paradigm to another - is simply an (obvious) expression of our common humanity. Everything is reduceable to human terms. If we dig deap eenough, there's no Western vs Eastern dichotomy.
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Problem is, I don't see a lot of understanding of the other ways of seeing the world. That is really common on h2 where most of the people I am talking to are British and simply have no experience with say native consciousnesses. This doesn't mean there is no understanding at all, but when I start talking about Western thought vs other world views I get a lot of denial or blank looks.

For instance, the reductionist science view is a specific world view that came out of a specific culture at a specific time. But it's not the only useful way of understanding the world. Many people on h2 believe that it is, that it's the epitome of human understanding so far. That degree of denial prevents them from seeing what we have lost by losing the native views.

You seem to be saying that doesn't matter because underneath it all we're all human. Is that right? But isn't in effect saying the dominant culture gets to win and bugger the rest? And isn't that a loss for us as well as everyone else?

I have another question: do you see women being able to achieve equality within the current patriarchal systems we live in? How?

>> It seems to unhelpful - and unnecessary - to recast evolution as something caring, sharing and touchy-feely. <<

Most of the warm blooded mammals and even most of the marsupials and I are wondering how you've survived this long without love.

"Elephants are amazing creatures. They cry, play, laugh and have incredible memories. Elephants are sensitive to fellow animals where even if a baby elephant complains, the entire family of elephants will rumble and go over to touch and care for it."
Quote from:
http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/wildlife/elephants/elephant_about.html

There was also an interesting story I saw this morning which I can't find now for the life of me about how the 85% loss of elephant populations in recent years is causing neighboring herds to mingle (even though genetically un-related) restructuring their social interactions to reform complete new 'herds' with all the constituent parts centered around the eldest females.